Dams and Locks of the Upper Mississippi River
New Deal Work Relief and the Nine Foot Channel Project
Mar 6, 2009
In the 1920s, farmers of the Upper Midwest, strapped by low crop prices, lobbied for better navigation of the Upper Mississippi River to cheaply get their product to market. At times there was only 4.3 feet of water at a 2.5 mile stretch above the Rock Island Rapids. By 1927, Congress approved a lock and dam at Hastings, Minnesota, with the intention to fashion a nine foot deep channel throughout the Upper Mississippi.
The Great Depression
However, as the Great Depression took hold and Franklin Roosevelt became President, national feeling was that civil works projects should be modified to provide major relief work for the unemployed. The Nine Foot Channel Project came under consideration for cancellation in a special session of Congress during FDR's first one hundred days.
Iowa Representatives Edward Eicher, Fred Bierman, and A.C. Wilford led the opposition to the project on progressive, recovery, and environmental grounds. No decision was made from the Congressional hearings, but according to the authors of Gateways to Commerce, key government agencies and people, including the Corps of Engineers, came to a consensus that the project could employ thousands of people.
Winona, Minnesota
In the Winona area, for example, which included four locks and two dams from Alma to Genoa Wisconsin, 14,000 men worked on the river through 1934, according to the National Reemployment Service. Over 600 of these worked for the McCarthy Improvement Company on the Winona locks around the clock at its peak in August 1934. Also that month, the War Department estimated that an additional 12,400 worked indirectly preparing the materials for the work. National Reemployment also reported that locals got most of the jobs, splitting evenly between residents of Minnesota and Wisconsin. A lot of these workers were fed and lodged in camps.
The river projects boosted the Winona economy. Retail sales were up. Bank debits and deposits increased from a year ago. Two Winona colleges reported record enrollment. There were increased sales of new automobiles and entertainment spending had gone up. A Winona newspaper article claimed that the dark days of the Depression were over and Winonans looked to 1935 with optimism, despite plenty of people still on the relief rolls in the winter. Winona's employment situation earned it the title of "Garden Spot of the Northwest."
Alton, Illinois
All along the Upper Mississippi, however, efficiency lost out to relief employment. Besides concerns over safety, contractors had difficulty finding skilled labor with the complicated employment and recruitment rules of the National Recovery Administration (NRA), Public Works Administration (PWA), Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the National Reemployment Service. Some contractors sued the government over this. Wage rates were also fought over. At the Alton site, workers objected to Griffiths and Sons wage of $.60 per hour. The Labor Department resolved the issue with a $.675 rate.
Alton also had a battle over the composition of its potential work force of 1,800. Missouri Senator Champ Clark insisted that Missouri and Illinois should provide equal amounts of laborers. Alton Mayor Tom Butler claimed he worked out a deal with the Corps of Engineers giving Madison County, Illinois laborers a 3 to 1 edge. Butler won the argument. Meanwhile, from an engineering standpoint, the Alton site did not make sense. It was too close to bridges.
The conflict between work relief and efficiency was endemic to the project. The added jobs sparked local commerce but contractors and engineers were frustrated by safety hazards and red tape. But in the long term, a major commercial waterway was improved, helping the economy beyond the Great Depression.
Sources
O'Bannon, Patrick, William Patrick O'Brien, Mary Yeater Rathbun, Gateways to Commerce, 1992.
Winona Republican-Herald newspaper, various issues, 1934.
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